Dive Brief:

Gartner predicts the worldwide public cloud services market will grow 18% in 2017 to total $246.8 billion, up from $209.2 billion in 2016.

Meanwhile, IDC projects worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure will reach $122.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 24.4% over 2016.

Dive Insight:

Figuring in all the various parts of the worldwide public cloud market is difficult, which is likely why the numbers are so different. Gartner held a more modest forecast, though both project double-digit growth in the cloud, continuing a trend from past years.

The two analyst firms do agree on where the fastest growth will occur: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Gartner projects IaaS will grow 36.8% in 2017 to reach $34.6 billion, while IDC predicts it will have a with five-year CAGR of 30.1%. Some of the IaaS demand will be driven by increased use of compute-intensive workloads like artificial intelligence and Internet of Things.

Though a hybrid approach to cloud is growing in popularity, public cloud remains the most popular cloud category today because it’s an easy and often affordable way for enterprises to dive into the cloud. VMware recently predicted public cloud will represent 50% of all workloads by 2030.

This post originally appeared on our sister publication, CIO Dive. Our mission is to provide busy professionals like you with a bird’s-eye-view of the Information Technology industry in 60 seconds.